A Heart of Black and Gold
by Bardess of Avon
Summary: 'Who was my father' he always asked, but she never told him. 'Just a man who came and went like the tide.'


His mother likes to tell the story of his birth.

"You were born in the middle of a storm," she would always say, her grey eyes lost in another time. "It was the worst storm this island has ever seen—or so they say. And amidst the wailing of the winds and the docks splintering into pieces, you came screaming and squalling into this world as if you weren't ready. I daresay you weren't. But here you are, as strong and bullheaded as your father."

"Who was my father?" he always asked, but she never told him.

"Just a man who came and went like the tide," she said once.

Gendry wonders what it's like to come and go without a worry in the world, scattering broken hearts and bastard boys everywhere he goes.

It's not a life he can imagine.

.

He's fourteen when the pirate ship Usurper sails into port. Pirates are nothing new here; their spit of land wouldn't survive without the business.

But the Pirate King's ship has never dropped anchor here before, and the tavern is crowded with people eager for a glimpse of the Pirate King Robert Baratheon. Even Gendry, normally so unaffected by everything, wanders to the tavern on the pretense of visiting his mother where she works as a barmaid. The hall is louder and busier than it's ever been, and by the time Gendry finds his mother, she's setting a tankard in front of a fat pirate with a laugh like thunder. He slaps her rear and roars, "I had you the last time I was here, fifteen years ago, wasn't it?"

"Aye," she says with a brazen smile. She spots Gendry and her smile thins. "Gendry. I thought you were at the forge."

"I came to see you," he mumbles. He suddenly wishes he hadn't.

"This is your boy?" the Pirate King rumbles. His eyes are the same piercing blue as Gendry's.

"Yes. He's fourteen," Gendry's mother says carefully.

It hits Gendry the same time it hits the Pirate King. The older man laughs so hard that he chokes on his rum. "You got sea legs, boy?" he rasps.

Gendry shakes his head; he's never been out to sea before.

The Pirate King laughs even harder than before. "Yes you do. Your father's the Pirate King, and there's nothing but salt running through those veins."

.

When the ship sets sail, Gendry is on it. He'd kissed his mother on the cheek and hung up his apron for the last time at Tobho Mott's forge and packed what little he cared to take with him. It wasn't right, people kept saying, for the Pirate King's son to spend his days beating an anvil in a stuffy little forge; he was meant for greater things. Gendry supposes they're right.

They give him a hammock with the other younger boys; a fat boy they call Hot Pie, a tow-headed boy named Lommy, and a little slip of a boy who introduces himself as Arry. He likes them well enough; they're all younger than him and like to curse and fight more than he does, but they also look at him with a kind of awe he knows he doesn't deserve and wants desperately to live up to.

It isn't until supper the following night when Arry starts wrestling with Lommy and someone laughingly asks the first mate, Ned, if he's just going to let his little girl roll around with boys twice her size that Gendry realizes.

"Of course she's a girl," Hot Pie says as they watch Ned pry the two apart. "Her real name's Arya; she just pretends to be a boy because she says she has more fun that way."

Gendry thinks this will change the way he acts around Arry, but it doesn't. She still acts like a boy and everyone is content to let her pretend.

"Do you want to be a boy?" he asks her one day.

"No," she says flatly. "But I want to do everything they can do."

He's never thought about it like this before.

They're several days out to sea when he sees her whipping a small sword around the deck. She moves with catlike grace, and he watches her for several minutes before loftily asking if she even knows what she's doing.

"Of course I know what I'm doing, stupid," she spits back at him.

"You shouldn't insult people who are bigger than you," he says, towering over her.

"Then I wouldn't get to insult anyone," she points out with no small measure of indignation.

"I bet you don't even know the first thing about swordfighting," he scoffs. Before he can react, the point of her blade is pressed into the side of his neck.

"Stick 'em with the pointy end," she gloats.

That's the first thing she teaches him and Hot Pie and Lommy when they practice swordplay. She teaches them other things, too, like how to hold a sword ("Not like a battle-axe," she says supremely) and how to attack and how to stand.

"How do you know so much about swordfighting?" Hot Pie complains one day after Arya has successfully disarmed him and left bruises all over his arms and legs.

"There used to be a Braavosi water dancer on this ship," she says. "Syrio Forel. He was the first sword of the Sealord of Braavos, and he taught me everything I know.

Gendry doesn't take much stock by the first sword of the Sealord of Braavos—until they find themselves locked in battle with one of His Majesty's ships. Ned tells the three boys and Arya to stay below—so of course they sneak back up the minute no one's looking.

One of His Majesty's men comes flying at them before Gendry has time to react. But Arya's thin sword comes twirling out of nowhere and pierces the man neatly in the stomach. He falls back, clutching his stomach, blood already staining his white shirt. Arya looks surprised, but a moment later she shakes herself and bellows, "Come on, then!"

They trip after her, swinging their swords with abandon. Gendry doesn't actually kill anyone, just whacks with the blunt of his sword, following Arya as she dances her way through the sea of men. By the time her father sees her and grabs her by the scruff of her neck, His Majesty's men are retreating back to their ship and the Pirate King has won the battle.

Robert thinks it's hilarious that little Arya Stark ran into battle and killed a man, but Ned is less than thrilled.

"You're a child, Arya; you have no business killing men," he says in a pained voice.

She doesn't blink. "Valar Morghulis."

Gendry doesn't find out what it means until years later, but it sends a shiver down his spine all the same.

.

Sailors come and go whenever they make port. Most of the men stay, eager to keep on with the Pirate King, but there are some who have a thirst not even the Pirate King's treasure troves and barrels of rum can slake. Younger, fresher faces replace these, not yet hardened by wind and salt.

Gendry stays, and so do his friends. At first he wonders why, when the other men make fun of Arya for acting like a boy or Hot Pie for being fat or Lommy for, well, being Lommy. Then it occurs to him that this is the only place they feel like they belong. They are all each other has in the world. They're all misfits, all unwanted in some way or another. This ship is their only home.

Sometimes Gendry thinks back to the island where he grew up. He thinks back to his mother and Tobho Mott and the home he left behind. He wonders if he could go back now, after everything he's seen and done. He wonders if he could pick up a hammer and tongs after dancing the Braavosi water dance and go back to the way it was.

Somehow, he doesn't think he can ever go back to the way it was.

.  
>Four years come and go aboard the Usurper, and Gendry becomes a man grown.<p>

"You look like your father when he was your age," Ned likes to say with a fond smile.

"Ah, he's better looking," Robert will retort. "We ought to put in anchor at Blackheart's Landing, get him some girls!"

For some reason, the suggestion always puts Arya in a bad mood.

"I bet those girls are covered in fleas and diseases," she spits. "I bet you'll try to put your cock inside one and it'll fall off."

Gendry doesn't want to put his cock inside one of those girls. He likes girls, of course (at least, he thinks he does; when was the last time he saw a real one?), but he doesn't want to be like his father. He doesn't want to sail back in fifteen years and find a bastard boy hardened by forge fires and a fatherless childhood.

He tries to explain this to Robert, who of course won't hear any of it. He and the rest of the men steer Gendry toward a brothel called the Peach and plop him down on a bench; no sooner has he taken his seat than a tankard of something foul-smelling is pushed in front of him and a girl with a tight corset and breasts spilling out of her bodice drops into his lap.

"'E's 'andsome," she declares, nearly smothering him with her breasts.

"He's nearly a man grown; it's time he's dipped his wick!" Robert bellows.

Gendry doesn't notice Arya scowling in the back of the room.

.

In the end, Gendry drinks more than he's ever had in his entire life and goes up to a room with two of the girls, who always offer their services free of charge to the Pirate King's crew. He wakes up with the worst headache of his life and stumbles, half-blind, down the stairs to the tavern. Much of the Usurper's crew are passed out on the tables and benches and even the floor. Only Hot Pie and Lommy are awake, talking over bowls of porridge. They descend on Gendry with questions, none of which he feels like answering.

"Where's Arya?" he manages to ask when they've shut up.

"She went with Ned to a proper inn," Hot Pie says through a mouthful of toast. "He didn't want her 'round here."

"Can't blame him," Gendry mutters. He knows that when he sees Arya next, she'll probably say something mean about his cock falling off.

But he doesn't see Arya again until they haul anchor two days later, and when he finds her, she's talking animatedly to a boy Gendry's never seen before.

"And who are you?" he asks rudely.

The boy's purple eyes widen in fear, but Arya huffs. "We were in the middle of a conversation, if you don't mind. This is Edric Dayne; he's joined the crew."

Gendry doesn't like this Edric Dayne, and he doesn't quite know why. He looks too soft for a pirate, too young and stupid. And what sort of pirate has purple eyes, anyway?

"Carry this," he commands, shoving his pack at the boy. Edric Dayne looks surprised but beats a hasty retreat; Gendry smirks as he watches the boy trip over his own feet.

Arya rounds on him. "What was that for?" she fairly spits.

"He's new; we've got to make sure he's worth his salt, don't we?" Gendry asks in what he thinks is a very innocent voice.

"And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Arya sneers. "The Bastard Prince whose father buys him whores because his personality's too dull to win over women like a normal man."

Gendry is too stunned to move, which is probably a good thing, because he wants to push her into the water. She gives him a disgusted look and storms off, probably to talk to purple-eyed Edric Dayne some more. He considers calling after her, telling her he never wanted those girls from last night and he's not really even sure he wants to be a pirate, but he knows it's no use. When Arya's mad, she's mad.

.

She stays mad at him for the better part of two months. She practices swordfighting with Edric Dayne, and Gendry is horrified to note that Edric is better than he is. He's nicer to Arya than Gendry is, too; where it isn't unusual for Gendry to throw Arya into the water when she's being obnoxious, Edric always makes her laugh and smile. They stop at a port in Asshai and Arya disappears to the market with Edric; when she reappears, her dirty boys' clothes are replaced by clean black breeches and a pressed white blouse.

She collects other things at her port-stops with Edric; in a matter of weeks she transforms from Arry the cabin boy to Arya Stark, the only woman aboard the Usurper. Her worn sandals are replaced with knee-high boots, a tri-corner hat sits atop her combed and grown out hair, and a black corset cinches her waist and reminds Gendry that she was a girl after all. He doesn't like this new Arya; he could swordfight and swear with the old Arya, but he doesn't know how to behave around this one.

He decides to make fun of her.

"How're you gonna swim in that getup?" he demands one afternoon when she's not attached to Edric's hip. "You'll drown if you fall in the water with that…thing…squeezing all the air out of you."

"Thanks for the concern," she says loftily. "But it'll take more than a corset to drown me."

He scoffs at her and she narrows her eyes. "Watch and learn, land-lubber." And she dives over the side of the ship and into the water below.

A shout goes up behind Gendry, but he doesn't stop, doesn't even think, just jumps in after her. Stupid, he thinks as he kicks deeper, stupid, stupid, stupid. She's going to drown from trying to prove him wrong and it'll be his fault, he's so stupid.

He feels something tugging on his shirt, and suddenly he is being dragged to the surface. When he opens his eyes, he sees Arya's head and shoulders above the surface.

"I told you," she says simply.

He splashes her and she laughs, spraying him with saltwater.

They're friends again after that. She practices swordfighting with him again, and the next time they make port, it's him she explores the market with and not Edric Dayne. He realizes not far into their quest that she only brings boys with her to carry all of the nonsense she buys, and Gendry starts to wish he had just let Edric accompany her.

"Why are you suddenly acting like a girl, anyway?" he asks as she adds another decorative corset to the pile.

She thinks about it. "I guess…because everyone always made fun of me or didn't take me seriously because I was trying to be something I wasn't. I'm not a boy, and no one believed I was. And everyone told me that when I became a woman I would have to live on land, because women are bad luck on ships or some stupid thing. And then I started thinking about why women are bad luck."

"Because they'll distract men, most like," says Gendry, who never put much stock in myths anyway.

She smiles up at him. "And what does that say about women?" She doesn't let him answer. "Then I thought about all those legends of mermaids and sirens who drown sailors or enchant them to wreck their ships. And I started thinking…maybe women have more power than men. Not in the fighting way, but in a different way. Men are so scared of us that they make up stories and myths to keep us away. Why? Why are they so afraid?"

Gendry's never thought about it like that before, and his first instinct is to argue that of course men are more powerful than women, but something makes him pause. He thinks about the brothels his father always visits, trading his gold and jewels for an hour or two with a woman. He thinks about the wooden siren carved onto the bow of the ship, the one carved into the likeness of Lyanna Stark. Then he thinks about the mermaid stories the men always tell, the mermaids who can save a sailor with a kiss or drag him down to the depths of the ocean.

Then he thinks of Arya, changing out of her little boy disguise meant to hide her and slipping into the tighter, cleaner clothes of a woman that attract attention. And he has to admit that maybe there's something to be said for this new Arya.

They've rounded a corner and are making their way back to the ship when something small and furry lands on Arya's shoulder. She lets out a noise of delight and reaches up to pet the capuchin, which is shrilling and squeaking excitedly.

"She likes you, lady," a woman with skin black as night tells her from her stall. "I never seen her take to no one like that before."

Arya needs no more convincing. "How much?" she asks, and hands over the coins readily.

Gendry can sense this is going to be a problem, and he's not wrong. Nymeria, as Arya names her, skitters all over the ship because Arya doesn't like using her little leash. She shits everywhere and even throws it at sailors if they're not paying enough attention to her. What Gendry likes least about her is the fact that she's always stealing anything shiny of his and hoarding it up in the crow's nest.

"She's just a baby," Arya coos.

They fight about Nymeria a lot, until the day Nymeria throws her shit at Edric Dayne for no apparent reason.

Gendry likes the monkey a lot after that, and always gives her a slice of apple or a carrot in the hopes that she'll do it again.

He doesn't have much of a chance; when they make port in Dorne almost a year after Edric joins their crew, the heir of Starfall takes his leave.

"I've been away from home for too long," he says as he gathers the last of his things. "I've a family to see to, and land to work. My adventures are over."

Gendry would like to be an adult and reserve judgment on the matter, but Hot Pie and Lommy don't try to keep their opinions on the matter quiet, so neither will he.

"I liked Edric, but he was a bit too soft," Hot Pie says, as if he did not piss himself during his first skirmish. "He was never meant for the pirating life."

"His heart was too gold to be black," Arya agrees.

Gendry doesn't know how he feels about this. Of course as a pirate you should have a black heart…but there is something appealing about a heart of gold. He wonders if Arya liked Edric's heart of gold, or if she thought him weak. He wonders if his heart is really as black as his father's, and what Arya thinks about that.

He finds himself thinking about Arya a lot, actually. She's fifteen now, nearly a woman grown, and he knows he isn't the only man who's noticed. Ned makes her sleep in the spare cabin, reluctant to let his young daughter sleep in the hold with all the men, who have murdered and raped and will do it again. Gendry misses having the hammock under hers, misses their whispered conversations in the middle of the night and the soft, shallow breaths of her sleep.

She still spends an inordinate amount of time in the hold, drinking and laughing and swearing with the men. They like her a lot more now that she's a woman, Gendry notices; they've stopped pushing her away and started asking her to join them. Their teasing has changed from mean to lighthearted and friendly (or as friendly as it ever gets with this lot). She belongs in this crew. And not just below decks, but above, too; Robert orders her to take the wheel more than a few times, and when a ship from His Majesty's navy pursues them, she is the one who makes their escape with nothing but the wind in their sails.

"Your little girl is going to break hearts, Ned," Robert chuckles in the dining cabin one night, when it's just him and Ned and Gendry. "I swear she looks more like Lyanna with every passing day."

"She does," Ned agrees with no small degree of discomfort.

"Ah, don't look so worried, Ned; women like that only ever love one thing: the sea." Robert points his cup at Gendry. "Don't you forget that, son. You can love a woman until there's nothing left in you, but lasses like those Stark girls will always love the sea more."

Gendry wonders if this is what happened to the girl his father loved once. He knows pieces of the story; that Robert and Ned were sailing under King Tywin when Ned's sister and Robert's fiancée, Lyanna, was kidnapped by the Pirate King Rhaegar Targaryen. That Robert and Ned abandoned their posts and turned pirates to save her. That it was too late when they got there; by the time Robert had killed Rhaegar and claimed his place on the Pirate Council, Lyanna was dying.

He imagines Arya, locked on land and desperately wanting an adventure. He imagines a young and handsome Pirate King (who looks strangely liked Edric Dayne) falling madly in love with her and begging her to sail the seas with him. He imagines her wearing herself out on adventures until there's nothing left.

It isn't a happy thought.

.

Two years pass after that night, and the Golden Lion, the prize ship of Tywin Lannister's navy, comes upon them out of thin air one night. It's a good fight, with bloodshed on both sides and lost limbs and deep cuts that will make beautiful stories someday. It's over with a whir of swords as Arya leads the men in chasing His Majesty's sailors off the Usurper and back onto the Golden Lion. A cheer goes up as the royal navy retreats; Gendry looks to Arya and Hot Pie and Lommy, grinning at their victory, and then turns to look at his father.

But Robert isn't laughing or drinking or cheering over their victory the way he always does. He's slumped over on Ned's shoulder, his face drained and his black and yellow waistcoat stained in red.

And for the first time in his life, Gendry knows real and true fear.

.

Robert takes to bed and lies in a fever for three days. Technically Ned, as first mate, has the command, but he won't leave Robert's bedside, so Gendry tries to take up command. Everyone is content to let him; he's not the captain they would choose, of course, but the Pirate King isn't yet dead and they like Gendry, anyway.

"You know you'll have his place on the Pirate Council," Arya says on the second night. "You'll be a Pirate Lord."

"I don't want to be a Pirate Lord," he says in a fit of sullenness. "I don't want to take his place. I'm not my father."

She looks at him curiously. "Maybe not," she allows. "But you are his son, and everyone's going to be watching you." When he still looks upset, she takes his hand in hers. "Don't worry about it. Just leave everything to me."

He doesn't move his hand from hers, and they sit together in silence until the sun comes up.

.

On the third day, Robert calls Gendry to his cabin. It stinks of sweat and blood and infection, and it's all Gendry can do not to gag. He sits on the edge of Robert's bed, taking his father's hand in his own. They've never been affectionate; it's hard to make up for fourteen lost years, and no amount of gold or whores can make up for what isn't there. This is, Gendry thinks, the closest he's ever been to his father.

"This is the way I wanted to go," Robert rumbles sleepily. "But I didn't mean to leave it like this. Always meant to leave you better prepared."

"When have you ever prepared for anything?" Gendry asks in an attempted at lightheartedness, and Robert laughs so hard he coughs up blood.

"Here." He presses a piece of eight in Gendry's hand. "This is my piece. It's yours now; you'll take my place on the Pirate Council, gods help ye."

"I don't know how to be a pirate lord," Gendry says quietly.

Robert laughs so hard that blood bubbles to his lips again. "Neither did I. But you'll have Ned and his little girl to put you to rights." His eyes soften as he takes in Gendry. "You're my son, but your mother raised you to be better than me. I'm glad for that."

"I'm not better than you," Gendry says with abashment.

"Shut up," Robert growls. "You are. Never seen you make a mess you didn't clean up yourself. That's the way a man ought to be. Me, I left messes everywhere I went, and always left Ned to clean up after me." His lips quirked up. "But I have a feeling it's that little girl you'll be cleaning up after."

Gendry considers reminding his father that Arya is seventeen and not a little girl anymore—but he doesn't want to talk about girls in his last moments with his father.

"Any last fatherly advice?" he asks, his voice cracking.

Robert considers for a moment, his breath coming harder and louder. "Take what you can, and give nothin' back." He wheezes, gasps for air…and then falls silent, his eyes staring unblinking at the ceiling.

.

They give him a proper sea burial as befitting the Pirate King. Arya grabs Gendry's hand as they pull the last stitch, and she doesn't let go until the ceremony is long over.  
>"What do you need?" she asks, gray eyes staring earnestly up into his blue ones.<p>

You, he wants to say.

"A drink," he says instead.

.

They sail for Blackheart Bay, the seat of the Pirate Council. The other lords are already there or on the way, having been summoned by Ned. There's the Tyroshi Daario Naharis, the Lyseni Salladhor Saan, Balon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands, the red Thoros of Myr, Xaro Xhoan Daxos of Quarth, and Hizdahr zo Loraq of Slaver's Bay. All of them men who have been sailing longer than Gendry has been alive.

They don't want to listen to him, even when he's shouting over them. They all want the kingship for themselves. It gets so loud that at one point Arya stands on the table and screams for everyone to shut up and listen to her.

"The honorable council does not recognize this girl," Hizdahr zo Loraq says with barely concealed contempt.

"Oh, yes you will." Gendry has never been surer of anything in his life. "I name Arya Stark to take my place on the Pirate Council."

The room erupts into a fury, but it's already been done; a grinning Arya takes his seat, the piece of eight clutched tight in her hand.

"Isn't this against the Pirate Code?" Hizdahr complains.

"Well, to my understanding, the code is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules," Salladhor Saan drawls.

Hizdahr is positively beside himself. "This honorable council has always followed the code, in matters great and small, and the code clearly states—"

"I'd be careful what I say if I were you," Balon Grejoy says coldly. Beside him stands his daughter, Asha, the heiress to his fleet and the Iron Isles.

"To break the code would be—"

"We are pirates, last I looked," Thoros of Myr says in a bored voice. His first mates, Beric Dondarrion and Melisandre of Asshai, watch him with vague disinterest. "We aren't known for our law-abidingness."

Hizdahr turns red. "This council would have withered without the support of the Sons of the Harpy, and if this council is going to disregard the code, then Hizdahr zo Loraq—"

Daario Naharis pulls out his pistol and shoots Hizdahr in the chest. Everyone turns to stare at him, openmouthed, and he shrugs, blowing the smoke from the tip of his pistol. "His chattering annoyed me."

The room erupts in another fit as Hizdahr's body is dragged out of the room and everyone either berates or congratulates Daario for his rashness. The crew of the Harpy skitters to find a new captain, stuck between Kraznys mo Nakloz and Reznak mo Reznak; the Sons of the Harpy like Kraznys, but the rest of the council tells them decidedly that if they elect Kraznys in Hizdahr's place, no one will vote him Pirate King. Another argument over who ought to be the Pirate King erupts when Arya slams her knife into the table.

The hall falls silent as every eye turns to her.

"Now then." She stands on the table and yanks her knife out of the wood but does not return it to her belt. "You can all keep squabbling like a brood of hens, or you can shut up and be men of action for once."

She definitely has their attention now.

"How many pirates has King Tywin sent to the gallows? How many pirate ships have sunk to the deep because of his cannons?"

An angry murmur starts in the back of the room and ripples back to Arya. She allows a small smirk before continuing. "You could choose another fat man to be the Pirate King, keep watching your men hang and your ships sink beneath you. Or…you could choose me."

Xaro Xhoan Daxos laughs a great, rumbling laugh. "This little girl as the Pirate King? This is a clever jape, Lord Gendry, but it is time to be serious now."

Arya crouches to face him and sticks the point of her knife under his chin, forcing him to look her in the eye. "Insult me again and I will make you sing sweetly." She straightens up. "Of course, how could I forget, Xaro Xhoan Daxos; when the Thirteen of Quarth captured your ship, you sang very sweetly, didn't you? That's how you got to be on this council in the first place, isn't it?"

Another ripple passes through the room, and Gendry can practically feel Arya winning them over.

"And, may I ask, how many battles have you fought, Lady Stark?" Salladhor Saan wants to know.

"Only petty brawls compared to Blackwater," she says easily. "Or the Greyjoy rebellions."

Everyone laughs as Salladhor Saan and Balon Grejoy turn red.

"It is true, I am young and inexperienced," says Arya. "I don't have quite the…reputation that the fine men of this council have."

It's her final blow, the one that kills, and Gendry knows it well. They are a collection of peacocks too content in their feathers to get their hands dirty, and this little girl has revealed them for what they are.

When the vote is cast, he can't even be surprised that an overwhelming majority has voted Arya Stark the Pirate King. He stands back and watches, a practiced smile on his face, as their crew hoists her up on their shoulders and cheers. Nymeria alights on his shoulder and picks through his hair; even so, he feels lonelier than ever.

.

The pirates, being pirates, break out their rum and stolen delicacies, feasting and drinking and dancing and laughing and generally being very noisy. Gendry doesn't even try to approach Arya; he's surprised, therefore, when she breaks off from the Lyseni pirates surrounding her and comes to him.

"You're sulking again."

"I'm not."

She quirks her eyebrow. "You are."

"I like being by myself sometimes," he says defensively.

She waves her hand dismissively. "Look, I want to talk to you about something."

"Um?"

She takes a deep breath. "I want you to be my first mate."

"What—"

"My father's retiring, and I don't want him breathing down my neck anyway," she says, talking over his protestations. "I want you by my side."

He stares at her. "Don't be stupid. Hot Pie and Lommy have been pirates for longer than I have. I'd be terrible, you should ask someone else—"

"I want you." She looks meaningfully up at him. "I don't want anyone else." When he doesn't say anything, she lets out a noise that is half frustration and half amusement. "I want you, you blockhead." As if to emphasize her point, she grabs his shirt and tugs him down to kiss her.

It's several moments before the pounding in his ears turns into the hooting and hollering of the men watching. Vaguely, he hears someone make a jape that the King has found herself a Queen, but he tunes out the laughter and rests his hands on her hips.

When they break apart some time later, her face is flushed and he knows his must be too.

"Mr. Waters," she says sternly. "I have a task for you in my cabin."

He can't stop the grin that splits his face. "Aye, cap'n."


End file.
